jozif – Musical Misfit

jozif is the rising star of London’s underground house (and beyond) scene. He recently launched the vinyl only imprint Fist or Finger alongside fabric resident Craig Richards and via his own productions and expertly crafted DJ sets he is fast becoming a man in who is very much in demand.

With more collaborations in the pipeline alongside Richards and his recent Electronic Beats Radio mix hitting the airwaves we thought it was time to find out a little bit more about jozif.

Hello, please can you introduce yourself?

Hello – I’m London DJ/producer/misfit jozif

When did you first become involved with music?

I’ve just kind of always been involved in it really. My father was a professional drummer and my mother was in the Royal Ballet before moving into singing…

Both my brothers play drums, piano, guitar etc, so we’ve all just been playing and making music since we were little.

Can you tell me some more about Fist or Finger?

Of course! FoF is the little vinyl only label that I run, in the loosest sense of the word, with my friend Craig (Richards).

It’s something we had been talking about for a while because we had been writing some music together and just thought it would be a cool little thing for us to do…for now it’s just my original on one side and his amazing reinterpretation’s on the other. We have do some original stuff from both of us that I think we’re going to put out later on….

How did you first meet with Craig?

Well, I kind of met him through Andrew Weatherall. Andrew had been playing some of my music that I’d given him after a gig together and we started to hanging out. To be honest at that time my music wasn’t anywhere near where it is now but Andrew gave me loads of support and advice… so, the only other person that I had the same feelings for was Craig. So I just went to see him at fabric one night.

It wasn’t exactly what you’d called love at first sight! But he called me a few weeks later and asked me for some more music. I went down to club and we hung out over the next few months and that was that – I think that was about 5 years ago…

How do you work together – what is the division of labour in the studio?

It varies every time to be honest. We don’t really have a set way of working.

Craig has an amazing studio in his beautiful house in Dorset and I’ve got my little war zone in Dalston – sometimes I’ll go to him and we’ll work from there and sometimes he’ll come to me.

Sometimes we’ll sit and write something together or he’ll do it and engineer it…or vice versa. He might send me some sounds bites in the middle of the night to work on! You have to understand, Craig has an unbelievable ear – it’s quite staggering sometimes watching and listening the way he digests music… totally awe-inspiring at times – or unbelievably frustrating at others.. He’s a total artist in the truest sense of the word – his paintings/sketches & drawings are fucking outrageous!!!

Do you think it is gives your joint productions an edge, because you are working with someone who is coming at things from a slightly different angle?

Hmmm. I’m not sure about that. Most of the stuff that we’ve done together, no one has really heard apart from us. The Fist or Finger stuff is one side him and one me… so…. there’s not a huge amount of crossover. I mean, to be honest, there’s no way on earth I’d be able to come up with something as painfully beautiful yet spooky and edgy and ‘out there’ as his versions of Beats in Space and Brick Jane… When he first played me them I fell off my chair!

Any plans to play live or DJ together?

Yeah I think so; we’ve both obviously got lots of DJ commitments of our own but it’s definitely something we have been talking about. We played back to back last year all night in room one of Fabric which was completely bonkers!

You also happen to work at Resident Advisor – is that a help or a hindrance with regards to you ‘night job’?

It’s definitely not a hindrance – I work with a great bunch of people who all love their music and are as crazy for it as I am. We are very fortunate to have such a massive wealth of talent and knowledge. It’s like a constant inspiration/learning exercise.

I’m sure you can imagine the amount of amazing music that flies round the office. Not just electronic stuff but just everything in general…

What’s coming up for you in the next few months?

Obviously more Fist or Fingers, we have so much more material it’s very exciting! Volume 3 is going be a little bumper, something I’ve been playing for ages – a proper little cosmic disco vibe number. I’ve got some remixes that are coming out, Mobilee, Compost, Future Classic, the SECT guys on Jonny Whites No.19 and another for my mates Shelton and Subb-an at one records. Then it’s time for Miami, Ibiza… and beyond.